How to Identify a Potential Pig Butchering Scam: Key Warning Signs and Prevention Tips
Some readers of our blog have asked us to create a post that talks about how to identify if you are a potential victim of a pig butchering scam. Well, this week I was approached by some scammers who used the pig butchering scam strategy to tap into my savings and make me a victim of them. I’m going to tell the story, provide warning signs, and tell you how in the end I made 70 USDC out of this.
Everything started with a sms from someone called Riley saying that they were a recruiter of a platform called LiveOne Music. Rile offered me a part-time or full-time job where I could make between $80 to $200 by investing just 20 minutes of my time. This was the first red flag for me as I knew that this was too good to be true. However, because I’ve been part of this kind of scam before and I know how they operate I said that I wanted to learn more about this opportunity and Riley told me that someone was going to contact me through WhatsApp (this is the second red flag).
A few hours later, someone by the name of David contacted me through WhatsApp saying that they worked for LiveOne and that Riley told him that I wanted to know more about this job. He started to ask me some questions (e.g. have you worked remotely before, do you have spare time throughout the day to make spare cash, etc) that I answered correctly and he told me that I was a good fit for this kind of job.
Then David started to explain how much I was going to earn doing this spare gig. He mentioned that I could do between $800 to $1100 in just 5 days. Again, this kind of return is too good to be true.
He also mentioned that by only doing the training I would make between $80 to $200 (I will explain this later, but this is where I made the $70 out of this).
After explaining the salary and commissions, David told me to go to the website https://www.liveonemusicgroubhub.com and use his invitation code to open an account. I’m providing the link to the website so you guys can access it from your computer but please be careful and not open an account. I took a screenshot of the login page to highlight a few things for you.
The login and signup look like pages of a credible website. If you look for Live X One in Google, you are going to see that the URL is https://www.liveone.com/ and it doesn’t match the URL provided by David. That was another red flag for me to know that I was being scammed.
I filled out the signup page and I created the account. One important thing to highlight is that on this kind of scam, they are going to request to take a screenshot of basically everything that you do to make sure that you are following the process, and you are not doing anything outside of what they tell you to do.
To start the training, David asked me to contact “customer support” and ask them to activate my account.
“Then David started to explain how much I was going to earn doing this spare gig. He mentioned that I could do between $800 to $1100 in just 5 days. Again, this kind of return is too good to be true.”
I proceeded to contact customer support and ask them to activate my account. All customer support chats on this kind of website look the same. They are going to ask you every time for your username so they know who they are dealing with.
Customer support came back saying that my account was activated and that they gave me $40 so I could do the training. Also, when I signed into the website they gave me a welcome bonus of $10. In total, I had $50 to start the job. They will always give you money on the platform, showing you how easy is to make money without you doing anything. After getting all the money, David asked me to click on the starting button of the home page so he could explain everything.
The idea behind the job is very easy, you submit reviews of songs to help them improve their ranking and make them earn more money. You don’t need to create the reviews, these are provided by the platform, and the only thing that you need to do is to click submit. Every day, you will get 40 tasks for you to submit.
Every time that you are going to submit a task, you need to make sure that you have enough balance to click the submit button. That was the whole reason for the platform to provide me with some initial balance so I could work on the tasks.
I started to submit the tasks and on the 26th task, I got a screen where it showed a negative balance. When that happened, David explained to me that this happens with the “group album reviews” because the price to submit those reviews is higher than the normal ones that are per song. This is where the scam happens because for you to continue submitting the tasks you need to have a positive balance, and to do that you have to put more money (your money) in the platform. Another important thing to mention is that when you have a bigger balance in the platform, the cost of the tasks starts to go up and up, and if a task bundle comes your way, then the negative balance is going to be higher. Also, for you to withdraw your money from the platform, you need to finish all the tasks in your account. This was all explained by David to me while doing the training.
Because I was doing the training, David told me to contact customer support and ask for the “Newbie Reward” to make the balance positive and continue the work. I did that and I was able to finish submitting the 40 tasks.
After completing the 40 tasks, David congratulated me and he started to explain how to withdraw the funds out of the platform. He asked me if I had a crypto wallet and I said yes. He asked me to get my USDC wallet in the Polygon network.
He explained to me how to add the wallet address to the platform and submit the withdrawal. One thing to mention is that sometimes they are going to request to submit a ticket with customer support for the withdrawal so they can verify it and start the process.
After submitting the withdrawal, it took a few minutes for the money to be deposited in my account. I was able to withdraw $70. However, David said that the training was not over because I could do 2 sets of 40 tasks to make up to $200. However, for me to do that I had to deposit the $70 that I had just withdrawn plus $30 because for me to start any set of tasks in the platform I had to have a positive balance of $100. At this point, I told David that I had to do something before continue doing the training and he said that he could wait. After sending that last message I blocked and reported the contact in WhatsApp and closed the website.
My strategy when I get approached by these people is always the same, do the training, get the money, and get out. Never put money in the platform, because money in is money lost.
Key Takeaways:
- Request for Screenshots: If they ask for screenshots of each step, it’s likely a scam.
- Too good to be true: if they promise you high returns in a short time, it’s likely a scam
- Don’t put money in the platform: if they ask you to put your own money to do the job, it’s likely a scam
- Run before it’s too late: if you can get money out of them, take it and run.
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